lernead.e. 325 



Order LERNEABjE. 



The mouth suctorial ; thorax not jointed. Feet and other 

 organs of thoracic segment nearly rudimentary. Body very 

 outre m appearance. 



The animals of this Order were placed by Linnaeus among 

 the worms, and most authors followed the illustrious Swedish 

 naturalist, as Dr. Baird tells us, till M. Surriray, a French 

 physician at Havre, " made the important discovery that the 

 ova were contained in the long filaments suspended from the 

 abdomen, and that the young, when born, bore no resem- 

 blance to their parent, but on the contrary were extremely 

 similar to the young of the Cyclops;" and shortly after Pro- 

 fessor Nordmann clearly established their characters to be 

 those of the Crustacea. 



These fantastically-formed creatures are all parasites on 

 fishes : Dr. Baird says, " TTe find them in all instances more 

 or less deeply fixed in the tissue of the parts upon which they 

 have taken up their habitation, and often so deeply lodged, 

 that little else but the oviferous tubes are visible externally. 

 There they remain, living at the expense of their host; 

 those that inhabit the branchiae, or are deeply fixed in the 

 soft tissue of the bodies, drinking up the blood ; and the 



